On 7/9/2010 2:39 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:
> it was widely-understood in 2004 that
> the split stemmed from Workers World's nomination of John Parker as its
> presidential candidate, with Terese Gutierrez as his running mate, while the
> PSL faction wished to leave its ballot line blank in deference to the
> "Anybody But Bush" Kerry supporters.
Neither workers world nor pissel gave any explanation for the split, and
at least looking at the online publications of both sides at the time,
the differences seemed nonexistent.
I find it hard to credit that the split was about an episodic difference
over the tactical stance to take in the 2004 election. There was a
debate in Solidarity that year over whether to endorse Nader and Camejo
or give the election a miss, and I think all involved would have
considered splitting over something like that to be completely bizarre.
Why would you go through all the rigamarole of establishing a new group
over a difference that was going to vanish in a few months? And the PSL
ran its own presidential candidates in 2008, confirming that if there
really was a difference as described in 2004, it didn't amount to much.
Thus we have only the clear statement made by the fact of the split
itself: that despite extensive political agreement, the pissel folks
considered the WWP loyalists to be such miscreants or incompetents that
it was better to break with them than to remain in the same group. And
the inference to be drawn from this, which is that the leaderships of
the two sides failed to reach an accomodation or agreement on a modus
vivendi that would have avoided the break, even though there appeared to
be an ample basis of agreement on political positions on which to base
such an accord.
Joquín